APC makes good ones, there are plenty of other good ones out there.

If you want to have the UPS power everything that's plugged into the conditioner, then put it first, but I would just have it covering your computer and other things that would require a save before power down, and therefore would have it plugged into the conditioner instead.

The UPS, IS, normally, a "conditioner", all by itself, some providing quite alot of protection. Good to read-up on them to better understand what they do and how the different makers do it.

When you choose one, make sure to notice that some offer much better arrangements for our "wall-warts".

Also, check out the software that comes with it - before installing! Its fine for most computers(Safely shuts down the machine before it's battery fails, in the event of an un-attended power outage), but may "interrupt" the proceedings during our audio recording, "checking" to see if it's needed. At least be sure you can disable it while recording.

Finally, while APC is very popular, when I looked at UPS's, several years ago, they didn't make the cut. I went with a Belkin(And there were better I couldn't afford.). I thought they were better build quality with a better socket arrangement and no more expensive.

TG

this brings up a good subject if you dont have one already you should get one. a power outage can crash a harddirve corrupt a file table in any computer. a friend of mines band whent to a studio where there was a power outage durring recording, this was a Big PT setup long story short they lost all the drumtracks, thats not even what they where recording, but thats what they lost. this is a verry good idea if you using a computer based system.

I guess everyone already knows this, but the UPS software is not needed for the UPS to function properly, only to shut down the machine during a power interruption when you're not around...

Of course, the bigger the UPS battery the longer you have to do everything from shutdown quickly during a power outage to keep working for "X" time, until the power comes back or you're forced to shutdown. It would take a pretty big battery to keep much going for more than 10 or 15 minutes... A UPS is, after all, just a gel cell battery with an inverter that "makes" AC, at required voltage. If the battery/inverter circuit is "on" all the time, continually "making" AC, instead of just using the wall supply when the AC is "up", the battery itself acts as a fine "natural" filter...

Calculate the approximate wattage of all the equipment you intend hooking up to it and check the specs for an estimate of the size UPS you need.

One of the neatest things about a UPS, is that little "power things" don't matter anymore. The air conditioning cycling on/off, small(Normal) up/down voltage swings, or even pretty large voltage swings(!), cause no "flicker" on the monitor or other problems.

And, indeed, a UPS, along with a reliable hard drive backup system are the top-priority computer accessories.

TG

Also, the ratings you hear quoted for UPS's are VERY unrealistic in terms of amount of time it can power devices during an outage. They are optimistic and don't consider all of the factors.

Agreed, I run a pretty decent UPS on my dual G5 that is rated for "15 minutes", in reality it gives me a little more time than I need to save and safely shut down (5ish minutes?)

Here's a thread on UPS's we did a while ago. Check it out , all UPS's are not created equal.

(Dead Link Removed)